


the one with the frogs

by pipsqueakparker (lafbaeyette)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29276532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafbaeyette/pseuds/pipsqueakparker
Summary: We’re meant to be putting up the Christmas decorations tonight, but Baz won’t let me off the sofa. Our Christmas tree is still boxed up somewhere in the flat, mixed up with some other boxes of decorations we’ve brought in recently. And Baz is nestled into my side, both arms wrapped tightly around my middle, his nose pressed into my cheek. We were going to watch a film while we decorated, but I think he’s gotten a bit distracted.--AKA, my fic from the let it snow zine
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 4
Kudos: 100
Collections: Let It Snow Zine





	the one with the frogs

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh, so a while ago none other than the Queen of Marshmallows selkie asked me to help co-mod a holiday/winter zine~ 
> 
> the zine came out in december, and selkie has finally allowed us to post our contributions~ 
> 
> sooooo, this was mine. i wrote a dumb lil' crimmis fic. i know it's february, buuuuut. 
> 
> enjoy

**SIMON**

We’re meant to be putting up the Christmas decorations tonight, but Baz won’t let me off the sofa. Our Christmas tree is still boxed up somewhere in the flat, mixed up with some other boxes of decorations we’ve brought in recently. And Baz is nestled into my side, both arms wrapped tightly around my middle, his nose pressed into my cheek. We were going to watch a film while we decorated, but I think he’s gotten a bit distracted.

“Enjoying yourself?” I ask, my voice soft and low. I want to turn to look at him, but I feel the tip of his nose press deeper into my cheek and find myself laughing. He gets especially soft and silly around the holidays.

“I love your dimples.” His voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear him, but when I smile wider his nose nuzzles further against my face, the tip nested right in the middle of my right dimple. He finally pulls back just enough to brush his lips over the same spot. Then he adds, “Your freckles, too.”

“What happened to the film?” I chuckle. He cuts off the end of my sentence by catching my lips. I hum against his mouth, revel in the feeling of him wrapping my curls around his fingers. I love when he does this, kisses me like I mean something to him. Kissing him is always so good, but the way his lips move so slowly and gently and _purposefully_ against mine in _this_ moment…

Merlin.

“ _Mmm_ , Baz.” I pull back just enough to speak. “We should put up the tree.”

“Is that what you’re thinking about right now?” Baz asks, quirking that brow at me.

“Of course it is.” I nudge his shoulder. “You made me lug all those ridiculous boxes up the stairs, I’m not letting them just sit here for a week before we get around to it.”

Baz rolls his eyes, dramatic as ever, heaving a long sigh as he pulls himself away from me. “Fine, fine. Let’s get to it, then.”

He really did make me carry most of the boxes up to the flat. Vampire strength be damned, I guess; he never seems to use it for anything _useful_. Just for being a knob and holding the door to the loo shut when I really need to piss. Wanker.

He’s got about half a dozen boxes full of decorations, though. Says it’s barely half of what they’ve got at his family home, which is absolutely ridiculous. Why’ve they got so many decorations? I’ve been there for Christmas. Once. They hadn’t decorated _that_ much.

Had they?

I do have to admit that it’s been several years since I’ve been there. I’ve still not been able to go back to their home in Hampshire. I still see Baz’s family sometimes, though. Either they’ll come visit him and Fiona, or invite us on a short holiday to one of their other stupidly large homes. (Baz says they don’t own _all_ of them, but I think it’s excessive to own more than _one_.)

Anyway, the two of us finally got a flat together earlier this year. It was sometime last week that Baz realized we didn’t have any decorations for the holidays. He rung his stepmother later that day and left this morning to collect some from Hampshire. It was all very efficient.

He’s not quite as efficient now that we’ve got all the boxes spread around the lounge. We got the tree up easily enough; it was one of those artificial ones that comes in three pieces. It’s about as tall as Baz and I, with lights already strung throughout the branches. I stand up to start spreading the fake limbs and fluffing it up, but Baz has started piddling about with one of the boxes.

“What’ve you got?” I ask, craning my head around the tree to get a peek at whatever’s stolen his attention away from helping me with this damn tree and its plasticky, pokey branches. (Next year I think I should convince him to get a real one. I’ve never had a real tree for Christmas; I think it’d be a nice thing to do at least once.)

He doesn’t answer me, so I stop messing with the tree for the moment, kneeling next to him and the box he’s been preoccupied with.

“Ornaments?” I lean over the box to peek in. “If we’ve got any more stringy lights or garlands we should probably put those on first, yeah?”

Baz nods, but he still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even look away from the ornaments in the box. They’re mostly covered in old and yellowed tissue paper, but there are a few of them peeking out. There’s a shiny red bulb that I can see, with two little googly eyes glued onto it all askew and two antlers messily cut out of construction paper. I smile as I reach down to pull it out; it’s also got a crooked smile drawn on in permanent marker and a fuzzy brown pom-pom for a nose. The letters T-B-A-S-I-L-T-O-N are scrawled across the bottom of the bulb in that sloppy, chunky writing that only children can manage.

“Is this one you made?” I ask. Baz nods again, finally lifting his head to look at the ornament in my hand.

“These are all my mother’s ornaments,” he tells me, his voice soft and tight. Baz doesn’t like getting emotional about his mother, but he still does. We have that in common. I’d never judge him for that. I scoot a little closer to him, until our shoulders press together, and try to remind him of that without saying it.

“Are they all your brilliant handiwork?” I tease, nudging him with my elbow. That makes him laugh, just a bit, and he shakes his head.

“Well, some of them, obviously. Anything I made before age five.” He pulls another ornament from the box, this one smaller and made of glass. I frown as he holds it in the palm of his hand, taking probably too long to figure out what it’s meant to be.

“Is that a… glass frog?”

“She also liked collecting some odd ones.” He’s grinning as he flips it over to study its froggy belly. “This one’s from 1992. She’s got one for every year.”

“A _glass frog_?”

Baz nods. “A frog. Not all glass, but she’d get a new frog ornament every year.”

He places the 1992 glass frog on the rug and reaches back into the box, proudly pulling out another frog. This one’s just as small, but green and ceramic and wrapped in a little white cloth. When he flips it over, the year reads ‘1997’.

“Baby’s first frog ornament?” I tease. Baz snorts, then continues to unwrap the ornaments. An anthropomorphic frog holding a diploma and wearing a black graduation cap, from 1986. Two little frogs stand together, one with a veil and another in a tuxedo jacket, from 1989. A little bejeweled frog encased in a glass bulb from 1973. A ballerina frog from 1976.

“I didn’t know your mum, obviously,” I start, looking at the array of frogs spanning from 1973 all the way to the year 2000. “But this… kind of makes her look like a complete nutter.”

The corner of his mouth curls up and he snorts again, elbowing me. _Fondly_.

There’s one more ornament that he pulls from the box.

This frog is green and looks a bit fuzzy and mangled—it’s made out of pipe cleaners and beads and has a little red felt Santa hat on its head. ‘2001’ is written across the white part of the Santa hat.

“S’that another one of yours?” I can’t help but smile at the scrappy little guy.

“It’s the last one I made. For her, at least. I gave it to her as a gift. Her last Christmas.” He’s still smiling a bit as he says it, though it’s sad now. Bittersweet. I sway into him, bumping his shoulder with my own until he looks up at me.

“I bet it was her favorite gift that year,” I say, seriously. Then, less seriously, “And I bet she’s getting a real kick out of you getting all mopey over a box of _frogs_.”

That makes him actually _laugh_ , a low sound that rumbles out of his chest. I tilt my head up and kiss his cheek, reaching out to take the bundle of pipe cleaners from his hand. “C’mon, the tree’s all bare, let’s get all these frogs up and _hop_ to it.”

“ _Simon_ ,” Baz groans, burying his face into my curls. I can feel the warmth of his laugh against my scalp, his breath in my hair tickles a little. “I’m legally obligated to break up with you now.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” His arms drape loosely around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest as he turns to face me. I feel his lips against the top of my head, then hear him humming softly.

“No, I suppose you’re right. I would never.”

We have to dig through a couple more boxes before we find the tinsel and lights, so by the time we’ve got those wrapped around the tree, our floor is littered with bits and baubles and more ornaments that I’ve _ever_ seen. I’m sitting on the floor by the base of the tree, looking through all of them and handing them up to Baz to hang.

He usually gripes that I’m placing them too close together, so I’ve started letting him put everything on first, until there’s no option but to place some next to each other. We don’t always reach that point, but I think this year it’s inevitable. Not only did Baz’s mum collect ornaments yearly, but Baz’s family helped him build quite the collection himself. It’s not nearly as extensive as his mum’s; so far it’s only _one_ ornament for every year.

He seems to remember picking out most of them, and he tells me about it when I hand the first one to him. His mum picked out a little baby bootie with his name and birth year on it for his first Christmas. (It’s his _actual_ first name, Tyrannus.) The second one says ‘Basil,’ and it’s a little purple gem in the shape of a heart; he says it’s amethyst, his birthstone. So on and so forth, he takes me through the years of Christmases with his family. The good, the bad, even the not-quite-existent. (The Christmas after his mum passed was hard, which has to be expected. I know it was years ago, but it still makes me sad for him to hear.)

Baz likes sharing these stories. I can tell because he just keeps babbling on, laughing at his own jokes and talking so fondly of his family. Not that Baz doesn’t often speak fondly of them, and not that he doesn’t blather on all the time, but it’s different this time. I don’t know how, exactly; I can’t actually place what’s different. It just _feels_ better, lighter. It _feels_ like he’s enjoying this. And frankly, I enjoy hearing it, the proof that Baz had a good family and a good childhood. That he was always loved and taken care of.

I almost wish I could chime in with my own stories, but Christmas at the homes wasn’t much to speak of. I don’t even remember all of them. And once I was at Watford, well. They were even less eventful, weren’t they?

But that doesn’t matter. I keep reminding myself of this, that the past is the past. It’s not about comparing childhoods or Christmases. I’m getting to share in these memories with him now, through hearing his own and making them together.

He’s starting to slow down on the decorating as the tree fills up, taking a little longer each time to find the _perfect_ place. I’m still handing him ornaments, though. Or trying to. He’s got about five in his hands. The next one I pick up is thin, just a painting of a cartoon character on a piece of wood. I reach up and slip it into the front pocket of his jeans.

Then, just because I can, I hook the next ornament into his belt loop.

“Do I _look_ like a tree, Snow?” he asks, glancing down at me with his eyebrow raised as I slide another hook into his belt buckle. I tilt my head back to look up at him, dressed in brown corduroys and green jumper, and... well…

“A bit, actually, yeah.”

He rolls his eyes but I don’t miss the quirk of his lips before he steps around the tree. When he moves back in front of me I continue my decorating, hooking the next few onto his belt loops and pockets. I even slide one into his back pocket, at which point he turns around and narrows his eyes at me.

“Have I ever told you that sometimes being around you is like being around a _toddler_?”

I laugh out loud at that. “Surprisingly no, that one’s not come up.”

“Well, it’s true.” He hangs the last ornament onto a tree branch then holds his hand out to me. “Get your arse up here and help me finish putting these on.”

I do.

We put the topper on together. Mostly because it takes two of us to figure the damn thing out. The plugs are _on_ the tree, but they get lost in the branches and tinsel and ornaments. And then we have to figure out how to get the damned star to stand without tipping or leaning. Baz fiddles with it for a good ten minutes before stepping back and declaring it done. I plug it into the wall, letting its lights fill up the room with the warmth and the shine of _Christmas_.

“S’not so bad for our first Christmas tree,” I say, taking Baz’s hand and tugging him closer to me. He frowns.

“It’s not our _first_ tree, Snow. I used to help you and Bunce put one up every year.”

“Yeah, but.” I shrug. “It’s the first one that’s… _ours_ , yeah?”

“Oh, now _you’re_ getting all soppy, are you?” he teases, then slides his arm around my waist and pulls me into him. He’s not warm, exactly, but it’s still nice and comfortable to feel the heat of him against me. He plants a kiss on my temple, my cheek, my nose, then whispers, “It’s perfect for our first Christmas tree, in my opinion.”

His voice is so soft, and serious, and there are emotions stirring heavily in my chest. They’re not bad, exactly, but they’re already verging on overwhelming. I tilt my face up and lick a stripe over his cheek just to break the moment.

It makes him cry out and laugh and pinch at my side, which all sends me into a fit of laughter, too. Before I know it he’s falling onto the sofa and pulling me on top of him, both of us breathing heavily as we calm down. I burrow into his embrace as the bubbles of laughter start to dissipate from us, and I let him hold me because it’s the closest thing I can think of to plugging whatever hole those emotions were trying to creep out of.

We fall asleep there, holding each other on the sofa. Just like we did all those years ago, our first Christmas together. In Hampshire. When this was _brand new_ and the feelings that tried to bubble up then were just as overwhelming, and the only way I could stifle them was to keep _kissing_ him. Then letting him fall asleep in my arms.

At least two things have always been true. Baz has never been as evil as I thought, and I’ve always loved him harder and deeper than I can even comprehend on a good day.


End file.
